O’Byrne Cup: Kildare Preview

opponents

Tonights opponents took care of college side DIT quite impressively in their opening game.
Kildare under new manager Cian O’Neill was keen to make a good first impression and they did.
They put 24 points on the board. That is some going in January!
Adam Tyrell was the star man on the day, scoring 9 of the lilywhites scores 7 from play. The Moorefield man will certainly be worth keeping an eye on tonight.

Overall, Kildare named quite a strong side and it is the perfect tester for our lads after Sunday.

testing

It is what the O’Byrne Cup is all about, testing.
Be it players, panel depth, management and tactics.

The more of a test we receive now will help us going into the league and especially our first game against London.

We were not that far away from a win on Sunday but our performance was below what we are capable of and even below our O’Fiaich Cup showings.
So with that in mind, we have plenty to work on tonight.

Sweeper

We are playing with a sweeper this season and bar Tyrone we’ve kept cleansheets and looked quite solid in every game. Derek Maguire was playing in that role but his injury has seen Eoghan Lafferty slot into that role the last day.
Regardless of our inexperience at the back I don’t think that is the reasoning behind this tactical shift. The more games and players exposed to it the better, it means we are giving experience to more players to that role specifically and the players around them in defence.
Kildare will really test us in that area but we will look to keep that defensive consistency as well as develop our counter attack too, that will be key especially if we are going to persevere with this new system for the 2016 season.

Tonight’s test could put an end to some players 2016 season involvement, players roles and also an altering of tactics for management to consider.